


you might fill with laughter until you break

by tinsnip



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Blessings, Blooming, Established Relationship, Fluff, Growth, Kardasi, M/M, Post-Canon Cardassia, conlang, lucky - Freeform, warmth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 13:42:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1690373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinsnip/pseuds/tinsnip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My friend, bmouse, likes it when good things happen to Garak. So do I.<br/>Here are a few vignettes set on post-canon Cardassia, involving nothing but good things.<br/>The background for these stories is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlCS-qf7yaM&feature=kp">"These Are Days"</a> by 10,000 Maniacs. If you like the song, please buy it.</p><p>The Kardasi in this story is a conlang based on the grammar proposed by <a href="http://galileoace.com/Cardassian/language.htm">galileoace</a>, and fleshed out by myself and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vyc/pseuds/Vyc">Vyc</a>. Translations are provided in hovertext.</p><p>Garak's claws are entirely bmouse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you might fill with laughter until you break

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bmouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmouse/gifts).



_these are days you'll remember_  
 _never before and never since, i promise, will the whole world be warm as this_  
 _and as you feel it, you'll know it's true that you are blessed and lucky_  
 _it's true that you are touched by something that will grow and bloom in you_

* * *

The garden is a mix of light and shadow. That suits him right to the bones.

Sometimes in these moments when he touches the earth, he fancies himself simply another kind of plant. A shadow-loving variety, creeping and broad-leafed, starting small but dreaming of great potential. Sprung from Cardassia's soil, certainly; seeking the sun, yes, and nourished by water and… by air, he supposes. That isn't quite right, is it.

The metaphor breaks down, as such things do. He still likes it. And as he'd never admit to it out loud, he supposes he may adjust it as he chooses.

His thoughts are a bit frivolous today, but that can be forgiven: it's warm today, _truly_ warm, the first day that he can taste spring in the air. There's freshness. There's growth. The plants have been so hesitant, this year and every year prior. Nothing has been quite the same since the bombardments. _Nothing grows like it used to._

Still, he's trying, and they're trying, and everything else is trying too. Cardassia carries on, and so do her children, sentient and otherwise. Life is a tenacious thing, and so here in Kardasi'or, every little house is touched by greenery. Every slapped-together temporary tenement, finding itself to be much more permanent than originally intended, is wreathed in the green of pugnacious ss'lei and clutching lover's-crown. Not much that flowers, sadly. That's all right. For now, the simple fact of green is enough.

He closes his eyes, dropping from his awareness the sight of his greening garden, and instead he lets his so'c tell him how things sit. Here, wafting faint spice into the air, is the burgeoning beginning of what might one day be a small garden plot: there's lennet, and darina, and even horrible bet'to squat beneath the soil. That always grows. _Typical…_

Now, further over—he drops his jaw, catches the breeze, sees a faint haze of gold as he tastes the green—oh, now that's a good sign! The heavy so'c'am of czIc is pungent in his mouth. It's going to grow well, he can feel it. It must be the warmth. This year Cardassia has been favoured with warmth and honest sun, Ra'ajev's gaze gentle and nurturing as the clouds finally dissipate. The treatments have worked. The weather patterns are almost normal now. If anything, there's slightly more rain. It's taken some adjustment on the part of the low-land farmers, but the outer worlds and the Federation have worked together— _imagine that—_ to keep the food coming, and finally Cardassia has found some kind of teetering balance.

He smiles, eyes shut, and tastes the air. Warmth and soil. Green around him. The dirt is soft on his bare knees, and his toes work into the earth, blunted claws scraping down and in.

_Talk to me, garden. Tell me more._

The garden yields its secrets willingly to him, who knows so well what it needs, who can read it like a book… hmm, another metaphor, and he chuckles to himself at his own nonsense, redirects himself instead to the work that must be done. The ss'lei has wound itself around and through the lennet's short stalks. It's always the first to grow, even if it is the last to bloom, and it causes no end of trouble if he doesn't pay attention. _The damage that vine can do before anything else has even managed to properly leaf out_ _…_ He shakes his head. _I really don't know why I keep it…_

_Oh—_

There's another taste in the air, a warm taste, and within him something small uncoils. _That's why._

"Good morning, ss'lei."

He hears a chuckle, then the sound of footsteps behind him, and then a hand lands on his shoulder. "Good morning, darling. You're up early."

He should open his eyes. He doesn't. Everything is perfect. "I wanted to take advantage of the weather."

"Mmmm." An intake of breath, a happy sigh. "Feels like it's going to be a nice one. Look at that sun!"

"Indeed, my dear." He lifts a hand from the soil, rests it atop the hand on his shoulder. "Glorious, isn't it?"

"That's one way of putting it." Now that voice is amused. "You're all over dirt. Look at you."

Now he does open his eyes. The report is accurate. Still, he can't really find it in himself to be much dismayed. "For particularly good results, sometimes one needs to get a little dirty."

"Do tell," comes the wry-voiced answer, and he smiles.

"Sit with me." He pats the ground beside him.

"On the ground? In my pyjamas?"

"No one will see." Not into his garden. He's quite certain of that.

A considering sound. "But I want my coffee."

"Why don't you go make some? I'm not going anywhere."

"Not looking like that, you're not." There's a yawn that starts out lazy, ends in the pleasantly-strained sound of an early-morning stretch. "All right. You keep at it, I'll be right back." Action is suited to word: he hears footsteps retreating, a door closing, and he's left alone in his garden… well, not quite alone. There's still a faint flavour in the air, still that warmth…

He closes his eyes again and does his best to pick up where he left off. It doesn't do to be distracted by little things. _And linchpins are such little things._

Where was he… ah, the troublesome ss'lei. And it will be troublesome this year: it's healthy, no hints of desiccation or dry-death, nothing in its so'c'am but strength and… wait, wait, that doesn't make sense.

He sips the air, eyes pressed shut, brow ridges twitching. The ss'lei's scent is layered, different. Something has changed…

Without looking, he reaches out, finds a snaking vine, runs his fingers along it. Tiny leaves, half-slick bark, here and there a thorn, and… oh. Oh, truly?

He can taste it. He _can_ taste it. He's not deceiving himself.

The ss'lei is budding. Soon it will bloom. Green and brown and cream, fresh and fragrant and far too soon, turning his humble garden into a palace of scent long before he has any right to it…

His face is calm and still. Within himself, though, joy twists with wary delight. _Oh, climate change, what little gifts you bring us._ How funny to think that for this he might have the Dominion to thank. _Life is strange._

Within the little house, he hears the clanking of cup on plate, the occasional half-heard snatch of song; in his mouth he tastes ss'lei and soil and Human and coffee. Calm and waiting, dug into the dirt and dreaming of what might be, he turns his face up to the sun and nourishes himself on air, wondering idly at how things change. _Look how my own patterns have been re-woven..._

Well, change is inevitable, he supposes, and not for him to concern himself with. For now, he must manage the garden, prune and nourish, keep it growing as it should. _My little microcosm._ Balanced in beauty, set out just so... except for the ss'lei, which has rooted itself in every patch of sun. Too, in the shadowed corners, creeping plants savour the shade and threaten to overtake their boundaries. He really ought to trim them both back ruthlessly. They'd be better for it.

Still... it's very likely an idle fancy, but he likes to think that where they share the soil, both are greener.

He smiles. It may be a slightly frivolous observation—not to mention a terribly maudlin metaphor—but since it's entirely his own, it will do.

**Author's Note:**

> A few notes on Cardassian greenery:
> 
> Lennet: a stalk-type plant. Crunchy. Little leaves run up both sides. Mint-spicy, as per Human report. Hard to grow in an unfriendly climate. Very good raw.  
> Darina: small blue fruits. Not unlike a grape tomato. No seeds. Crunchy rind. Good raw or cooked.  
> Bet'to: fat dark-purple root with a nutty flavour. Can be made into bread. Can also roast it and eat it as a snack, usually with some kind of salt or flavouring. Can even make juice out of it, although it is definitely an acquired taste, and don’t even ask about the alcohol you can make out of it. In short: it's tough, it's ubiquitous, and it's famine-food.  
> CzIc: rich orange flower with pendulous blooms. The scent is powerful for Cardassians, heavy and indulgent. For Humans, honestly, it kind of stinks. CzIc-based perfume is not uncommon on Cardassia.  
> Ss'lei: a vine that sometimes blooms with small flowers that have greenish centres. Grows wild; if planted in a garden, requires a great deal of maintenance, as it wants to twine around other plants and collapses under its own weight. (Word courtesy of [prairiecrow](http://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow).)


End file.
